Bill opens up special ed classes

Parents have sought right to visit to ensure kids' needs are met

June 16, 2009|By Rex W. Huppke, Tribune reporter

Amy Zimmerman has heard many say House Bill 628 sounds like it shouldn't be necessary. The bill ensures that parents of children with disabilities will have access to special education classrooms so they can be sure their kids' needs are being met.

"Many people think that's just a given, but it doesn't always work that way," said Zimmerman, director of Health & Disability Advocates' Chicago Medical-Legal Partnership for Children. "For a parent who has a child who maybe was just given an autism diagnosis, the school could say we're going to put him in such a such classroom and the parents would say, 'Well, we'd like to visit.' Before this law, it was completely up to the whim of the school district. They could say, 'Absolutely, come in and visit,' or they could say, 'Absolutely not. You have no right to visit.'"

While children with disabilities are guaranteed an education through the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the law is vague on the access that parents -- and the experts they hire -- can have to classrooms.

House Bill 628, passed this legislative session and awaiting Gov. Pat Quinn's expected signature, removes the vagaries. The law guarantees a parent -- or an expert hired by the parent -- the right to monitor a child's special education classroom, or to observe in advance the classroom a school district believes is the best fit for the child.

Zimmerman said Illinois is only the second state in the country to pass a law like this -- Massachusetts was the first. The law applies only to special education students.

Cari Levin of Evanston testified on behalf of the law, drawing much on her own experiences. When her son began struggling in his special education class, she asked the school district to allow her and her son's therapist access to classrooms that might better address her son's needs.

Levin's request was repeatedly denied. It was only through legal action that she was finally able to find a program that suited her son, who has childhood-onset bipolar disorder.

"As a parent, I felt almost at their mercy," Levin said. "I literally pleaded for anything they could tell me about the variety of programs that were available in the district so I could work with his therapist and psychiatrist to assess what sorts of options there were."

Her son is now in a therapeutic school and doing well.

Karin Vander Ploeg Booth, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician and an instructor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Chicago, said she has seen many parents deal with similar situations.

"It shouldn't be as hard as I think it is," said Vander Ploeg Booth, who also testified in support of the new bill. "I think there's some fear on the part of the school giving them access."

Tim Thomas, legislative chairman for the Illinois Alliance of Administrators of Special Education, said his and several other statewide teaching groups initially opposed the bill.

"When this was first introduced, it said it would allow parents and outside evaluators basically unimpeded access to the school system," Thomas said. "We believe in working with parents as partners. We believe it should be a collaborative effort. Our concern was, when you start talking about unimpeded access, does that mean they don't have to make a phone call before they come in? Can they just show up?"

The final version of the bill addressed the concerns Thomas and others had, requiring parents to submit visitation requests in writing and placing restrictions on who is considered an "expert."

Vander Ploeg Booth and others who work with children with disabilities now hope that parents learn about the law and put it to use.

"I think the very educated groups who know their rights will be able to use the law and get what they need," Vander Ploeg Booth said. "I work with a lower-income population, and they tend to be easily dissuaded by the schools."

Zimmerman said she doesn't expect school districts in Illinois to go out of their way to explain the new law to parents.

"This is going to be something that they're going to have to find out by themselves," she said.